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Bee-Culture at Present: Muir

There are many species of wild bees that eat honey but do not store it up, and it is to these that Muir refers in the following statement concerning the coming of the hivebees to California: - "How long the various species of wild bees have lived in this honey-garden, nobody knows; probably since the main body of the present flora gained possession of the land, toward the close of the glacial period. The first brown honey-bees brought to California are said to have arrived in San Francisco in March, 1853. A bee-keeper by the name of Shelton purchased a lot, consisting of twelve swarms, from some one at Aspinwall, who had brought them from New York. When landed at San Francisco, all the hives contained live bees, but they finally dwindled to one hive, which was taken to San José. The little immigrants flourished and multiplied in the bountiful pastures of the Santa Clara Valley, sending off three swarms the first season. "The owner was killed shortly afterward, and in settling up his estate, two of the swarms were sold at auction for $105 and $110 respectively. Other importations were made from time to time, by way of the isthmus, and, though great pains were taken to insure success, about onehalf usually died on the way. Four swarms were brought safely across the plains in 1859, the hives being placed in the rear end of a wagon, which was stopped in the afternoon to allow the bees to fly and feed in the floweriest places that were within reach until dark, when the hives were closed."

Thus modestly began what has since grown to be one of the most important bee industries in the world.

Thousands of acres of bee-pasture have been despoiled of their flowers by agriculturists and shepherds, the latter sweeping over the country with what Muir calls their "hoofed locusts" and laying waste the beautiful valleys as if a fire had devastated them. And yet there is abundant pasture for almost innumerable swarms of bees.

The bees of California, like those of India, and in fact of all warm climates, sometimes hang their combs in the open air, and Muir says: - "Out in the broad, swampy delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the little wanderers have been known to build their combs in a bunch of rushes, or stiff, wiry grass, only slightly protected from the weather, and in danger every spring of being carried away by floods. They have the advantage, however, of a vast extent of fresh pasture, accessible only to themselves." Sometimes the bees of California hang their combs in the branches of the trees, and in Ireland the bees sometimes build in trees or bushes, the combs weighing the twigs of the bushes to the ground; and the present writer has seen combs built in the open air under the eaves of a barn in Rhode Island, where the weather is certainly too severe to allow of wintering out of doors. These combs, however, appeared to be an overflow, so to speak, from the wellfilled space between the roof and sides of the barn, where a large quantity of honey must have been stored away. Bees sometimes select strange quarters for their hives, it being recorded that in a French fort on the African coast in 1702, an empty powder cask was taken possession of and filled with honey by a swarm of bees, while Muir says that a friend of his, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, sat down to rest upon an old coon trap he found, but which proved to be occupied by a swarm of bees and to contain more than two hundred pounds of honey.